Movie night this week was a long ago picked Netflix flick that I have wanted to see for a while now: a good old fashioned musical… Fiddler on the Roof. Logan and I both had no idea what to expect as we popped in the 1971 film, other than we were committing three hours and one minute of our lives to the cause.

Somehow, this story kept my attention for three hours. If you know me well, you know that I tend to nod off pretty easily while watching movies, especially if started after 8:00pm. But for this movie, I remained awake. I wouldn’t even say that this movie was that thrilling. But it’s definitely sayin’ something if I stayed awake. Enough said.

So the movie. I laughed. I cried. I marveled at the weird Jewish dancing by Tevye. I wondered what the 1970 filmakers were thinking a few times. It was a well-rounded, quality entertainment experience.

What a great central theme. The main thought I came away with from the movie was the breaking of tradition. Wow. What a challenge for the viewer. Throughout the film, Tevye had several “frozen moments” where his conscience had to decide which way he would fall; erring on the side of traditional thinking or allowing himself to go along with something, which got progressively newer and scarier and even more unheard of in his culture. This man versus man conflict was really interesting to me. I think I actually learned from this movie.

The selflessness that a parent must show was so evident in the character of Tevye. Although his relationships with people were all a little rough, he really had to reason through letting his own daughters make decisions that he didn’t necessarily agree with. I could see the struggle within him to want to force what he felt was best on his kids, but then ultimately he released them to do their own thing (which seemed to always turn out okay too!). What a great lesson to store away!